Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Connections

Last year my friend Bob emailed me that he had met a man whose wife, Marge Malwitz, is also a collage artist who does work with similar themes to mine and who has a blog . Bob suggested I email her and after looking at her blog I did so. As I was scrolling through her website I noticed a picture of a woman I had met 2 years before on tour in Costa Rica, a tour sponsored by a Christian organization we support. Kathie Beattie, who is a dear friend of Marge is a fabulous wildlife/bird photographer and later sent me some of her closeup shots of hummingbirds. Wow.

Kathie took this photo of me in Costa Rica 2006

Connections.Marge and I started corresponding and in one of her emails she mentioned that she and her husband would be in Portland at the end of January for a conference. I wrote back, asking if it was Missions Connexion NW. Yes! It was happening just 2 miles from my house. Marge came all the way from Connecticut to a church just 2 miles away.

I asked her to come over and play with me on Friday. Another yes.

Then I started thinking about dinner. They could come on Friday night. Bob and Annie (who introduced us) could come on Friday night. Luis and Pat, who sponsored the tour and who used to be Bob’s employer could join us.

Amazing.

Connections.

Marge and I had a wonderful day in my studio with lunch at the local Oregon College of Art and Crafts, and then the eight of us gathered for dinner and some of the most lively and enjoyable conversation. Neither of us thought to take pictures.

Art Tip: Removing acrylic from hands

Use ordinary hand sanitizer to quickly remove acrylic paint and medium from your hands. The alcohol in the sanitizer dissolves the acrylic. Wipe well with a paper towel and then wash with soap and water.

Art Tip: brush cleaning

As I work with acrylic medium for glue or with acrylic paints I stand my brushes in a bucket of water on my work table and give them a soap and water cleanup every day or so. But eventually my brushes get gunky and sometimes I forget to clean them. That's when I clean them with Murphy's Oil Soap. I keep an inch of MOS mixed 1:1 with water in a tall plastic tub (Feta from Costco) and put caked brushes in that solution overnight. By the next day the soap has softened the brush and with a bit of elbow grease I can get the brushes back to useable. This also works for brushes used with oil paint. I gave up using oils but wanted to save those good brushes and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue. Get it at the grocery store.